


In the Night Hours

by Levaaah



Series: Freefalling [9]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Forgiveness, Guilt, Redemption, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24045436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Levaaah/pseuds/Levaaah
Summary: Ooh, who said it's trueThat the growing only happens on your own?They don't know me and you“Out of all of you,” she says without turning around. “I wasn’t expectingyouto arrive first.”The screen flickers in pale green light of a bodiless woman. A mask. Barbara Gordon turns her head slowly, peering over her shoulder with calculating green eyes. Her red hair is tucked into a ponytail, and despite her best efforts of hiding them, there are dark circles under her eyes.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Original Female Character
Series: Freefalling [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631698
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	1. I don't deserve your love...

**Author's Note:**

> This is set during Batman: No Man's Land.

** 2016 – March – No Man’s Land **

“Out of all of you,” she says without turning around. “I wasn’t expecting you to arrive first.”

The screen flickers in pale green light of a bodiless woman. A mask. Barbara Gordon turns her head slowly, peering over her shoulder with calculating green eyes. Her red hair is tucked into a ponytail, and despite her best efforts in hiding them, there are dark circles under her eyes.

“I didn’t know if the alert included me.” Eleanor admits, dropping down from the window and shutting it behind her. Shuddering a bit from the cold wind that lingers in the room, Eleanor isn’t dressed in her old suit. Or the one she made in Berlin. She’s got normal civilian clothes on, dark blue jeans and a large black hoodie to cover her face. A small backpack strapped over her shoulders. Nothing that keeps out the cold of the still lingering winter.

Barbara watches her like a hawk for a long while, then spins the wheelchair around.

“He wanted everyone here, that includes you.”

Eleanor holds back the impulse to grimace. “Does it? Last time I spoke to him, he told me I was done.”

“You tried to kill-…” Barbara stops, fingers digging into the arms of the wheelchair as if it would be physically painful to speak _his_ name. The red-haired woman doesn’t continue, instead she reaches up to remove her glasses and rubs at her eyes. It’s only been little over a year since Barbara’s wings were clipped, and it’s probably not something she wants to think about. Let alone talk about.

“I’m sorry.” Eleanor murmurs, she’s not sure if she’s apologizing for failing to kill him or for attempting it in the first place. Barbara gives her a dark look that tells her that she too, isn’t sure.

“Yes, well.” She turns her wheelchair around towards the other room, gesturing for Eleanor to follow her. “We can’t change the past.” It sounds dry, like it’s been repeated to her and now she's just saying it out of habit.

Eleanor sees Jason’s face in her mind’s eye. Loving being Robin, loving discussing books with Alfred, loving making food for the family. Rose tinted cheeks from the wind as he would sail through the Gotham night sky.

“No, we can’t.”

Pointing to the kitchen chair for Eleanor to sit down, Barbara then moves around the room with practised ease. Grabbing two mugs and pouring some scalding water over two teabags she sits it down on the table in front of her.

“Sorry, no sugar or milk. The local supermarkets got destroyed or raided four months ago.”

“It’s fine.” Eleanor replies, stirring the bag slightly. They sit in relative silence for a long while, something she’d used to hate, but has in the past year become something she craves. Outside it's strangely quiet for Gotham. Though, Eleanor supposes, an earthquake of seven point six on the Richter scale would probably do that. Most of the buildings she’d seen when she snuck in to the city past the military blockade was collapsed, only the Wayne reinforced ones had survived. It had taken her longer than normal to get from the Trigate bridge to Old Gotham because of it. She would have to relearn the city... if she were allowed to stay.

“So, are you going to tell me what you’ve been up to?” Barbara asks, arching an elegant brow in question.

“I’m sure you know already.”

“The first couple of months, yes.” The redhead agrees. “But I would like to hear it from you, all the same.”

Eleanor sips the tea, hint of citrus, most likely earl grey.

“I went to Europe.” She starts, “after Jason died-,“ her heart stutters at the words, even after all the healing she’d done it still hurt like hell to admit it, to think of him as _no longer with them_. “-I wasn’t in the best place; you saw the aftermath of the funeral.”

Barbara nods, eyes downcast.

“I did some things I’m not proud of.”

 _The first step of getting better is admitting there’s something wrong._ Sensei would say, giving her that endless patient look that had infuriated her when she’d first met the man.

Barbara gives her a similar look.

“I… drank. Alcohol.” She clarifies. “It was never supposed to go as bad as it did. I had nightmares. I still get them sometimes.” Eleanor fidgets in her seat, running her thumb across the heated ceramic. “It was pretty bad.” She finishes lamely.

“But you didn’t come home.” Barbara’s tone isn’t accusatory, but her eyes betray her.

“I was ashamed… I didn’t want you, any of you, to see how far I’d fallen.”

“You went to _Ra’s al Ghul_ before your own family, Eleanor.” Barbara says, tapping her fingers against the wooden table. Eleanor ducks her head from the heated glare. Shame curling in her gut.

“I know.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“He said he wanted to help me,” she murmurs. “I’m not going to pretend that Ra’s is a good man. He’s done too many bad things for that to be true.”

“But?” The redhead prompts.

“He helped me… deal.”

Dealing was the closest approximate. She could never _move past_ Jason’s death. It would be akin to chopping of an arm. Jason was a part of her and would be forever. Her little brother.

“So, you dealt with Jason’s death by becoming an assassin for Ra’s?”

Eleanor shakes her head. “No… It was cooking actually.”

That seems to catch Barbara off guard, her fingers stop moving and she stills, watching at Eleanor with disbelieving green eyes.

“Cooking?”

“I-,“ Eleanor feels a bit of heat crawl up her cheeks from the incredulous look. “You remember how bad I was in the kitchen.”

Barbara huffs, a ghost of a smile appearing on her lips. “I remember you setting fire to a pot of boiling water.”

“That was Dick,” Eleanor argues, offering a smile in return. “But yeah, I learned how to cook. It’s therapeutic.”

“And Ra’s did this out of the goodness of his heart?” Barbara asks, eyeing her sceptically.

“I doubt it. But at the time it felt like the only option.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, there was some training obviously. But it was just to keep in shape. I did a lot of yoga.”

Barbara hums and Eleanor straightens out a bit, taking another sip of the cooling tea.

“He let you leave without question then?”

She sighs, putting the cup back down. “Yes, when I got the alert Ra’s asked if I wanted to leave, that was the deal from the beginning, no strings attached. I don’t know why.” She adds quickly when Barbara opens her mouth to question. “Only that he said he didn’t want B to lose another kid. Which admittedly was probably just manipulative bullshit but at that point-,” Eleanor sighs again, a heavy, world-weary sigh. “I was close to giving up Babs. Close to… ending it.”

Eleanor’s fingers tremble slightly as she places them on the table, a tear slips from the corner of her eye. She tries to focus on her breathing, taking slow and even breaths to still her racing mind. It’s so difficult to admit that in her darkest hour, she’d thought of taking her own life. Even now, after all the healing she’d done, it was still hard to think about. Hard to speak out loud.

Then a warm hand closes over hers, Eleanor hadn’t even noticed Barbara rolling herself close enough to be within touching range.

“I know, hon.” She says quietly. “God, I know how that feels.”

Barbara pulls her closer to her and Eleanor goes willingly into the embrace. Pressing her face into the older woman’s neck. It isn’t until she allows herself to relax into Barbara’s arms that she realises how much she missed physical contact that wasn’t fighting. When she’d been living in mountains of the Himalayas she hadn’t trusted anyone enough to allow them to get close to her.

She doesn’t know how long they sit in silence, but Barbara’s hand running up and down her back is just as comforting as the hug is. When they eventually part, Barbara wipes the tears from Eleanor’s face with a soft smile grazing her lips.

“Did I pass the test?” Eleanor asks quietly. The older woman looks a bit bashful when she replies.

“You knew?”

“I assumed.” She admits. “B wouldn’t have let me help if he thought I was compromised by Ra’s. He’s been listening the whole time right?”

“Yes.” Barbara nods.

“It’s okay,” Eleanor says, offering the older woman a weak smile. “I knew there would be consequences. I’ll have to earn back the trust I broke… and not just B’s trust. But Dick’s, Alfred’s and yours. Right now, I’m prepared to help. I _want_ to help; Gotham is my home too.”

“That’s good to hear,” Barbara smiles. “But you can’t help in that.” She gestures to the jeans and hoodie Eleanor is wearing. She bites her lip hesitantly. “We could probably fix up my old suit to fit you.”

“No offense Babs, but you’re shorter than I am, and you’ve also got bigger tits and wider hips.”

“Are you calling me fat?” the redhead says with a glint in her eye.

“I would never!” Eleanor gasps, placing her hand over her heart in mock indignity. Barbara laughs, and she can’t help but join in on it. Feeling the atmosphere lighten dramatically.

As they’re laughing, Eleanor spots the door to the kitchen crack open slightly, and she’s halfway out of her chair with her empty cup raised as a weapon by the time Barbara shouts out a quick.

“Stop!”

Brown eyes peers back at her from behind the door. Eleanor pauses, and Barbara waves the petit girl out from her cover.

“I thought you were asleep.” The redhead says, giving Eleanor a glance to tell her to loosen up. She does, sitting back down in her chair.

The girl is small, maybe five foot five inches, but there’s a strength in her movement that shouldn’t really be that surprising. Her black hair is cut short and she’s dressed in oversized clothes that Eleanor assumes belong to Barbara herself. She drifts across the room like a ghost, coming to stand next to the older woman, all the while shooting Eleanor suspicious glances.

“It’s okay,” Barbara says, grabbing the girl’s hand. “Eleanor is a friend.”

“Hello.” Eleanor says, raising her hand in a slight wave. The girl doesn’t say anything, but the tension in her muscles relaxes and she returns her attention to Barbara.

“She doesn’t speak,” the redhead says.

“Oh, she’s a mute?”

“No, she just doesn’t know how to speak. Her father never let her learn how, she was only taught how to fight. She reads body language like it’s an actual language. I think.” The girl looks up at Eleanor again, then moves around Barbara’s chair and stops by hers. She reaches down to grab Eleanor’s wrist with one hand and then presses her closed first against Eleanor’s palm.

Blinking, Eleanor shoots Barbara a confused look.

“It’s how she says ‘hello’.”

“Oh.” Eleanor looks back up at the girl, she can’t be more than sixteen. Maybe even younger. She grabs the girl’s wrist in her hand and lightly presses her closed fist against her palm, offering a smile while she does. The girl’s mouth splits into a grin, and she looks back at Barbara with excitement shining in her eyes.

“Does she have a name?” Eleanor asks, also looking at the older woman.

“No,” Barbara replies, with a shake of her head. “She’s only been here for a couple of weeks; I’ve been trying to teach her English. But I don’t know if any of it sticks.”

Eleanor drops her hand and the girl walks over to Barbara again, standing behind her in silence. Like she’s keeping vigil, like a guard dog.

“It’s been difficult to dig up anything about her with Gotham as it is.” Barbara says, looking up at her, then gestures to one of the other chairs at the table and the girl soundlessly slides into the seat.

“All she knows is fighting?” Eleanor asks as Barbara grabs and opens a can of baked beans then places it in front of the girl with a fork sticking out of it, who smiles and starts eating. The redhead gives her an affirmative nod.

“That’s really sad.” She murmurs, eyeing the girl with pity. “At least you’ll take good care of her.”

Barbara smiles again.

They sit in relative silence, for a while the only sound is the fork scraping against the inside of the tin can, Barbara refills their tea cups then uses the heat of the mug to warm her hands. Eleanor absentmindedly picks at her nails. Taking slow sips of the tea, tasting less like tea and more like hot water now since the same teabag had been used twice.

Eleanor meets Barbara’s eyes.

“Something on your mind?” The redhead asks.

“A lot of things,” Eleanor replies with a small smile. “How is Alfred?”

“He’s good, the last time I spoke to him, he mentioned that when he’s not helping Bruce, he’s helping Leslie at the clinic.”

“That’s good,” she bites the inside of her cheek. “What about your dad? I heard he was made commissioner.”

“Yeah, don’t think he actually wanted it, y’know? But he’s always led by example.” Barbara shoots her a wry smile. “Why don’t you ask me about what, or _who_ , is really on your mind.”

Eleanor ducks her head, and huffs. “That obvious, huh?”

“You still care for him.”

“I’ll always care for him, Babs.”

“Funny way of showing it.” It’s snarky and very well deserved.

“Is he okay?”

“Last time I spoke to him yeah. He’s enrolled in the Blüdhaven police academy. With the limited resources I have at the moment I can’t really keep a close eye as I’d like but the things I’ve heard sounds good, he’s been chipping away at the crime in that cesspool of a city and from what I can tell he’s happy.”

It’s both the best news and the worst news she’s had all day. Because Dick is happy, and God knows he deserves to be. But there’s a small part of her that’s also angry at him for being happy, _without her._ Eleanor has absolutely no rights to feel like that. _She’s_ the one who broke up with him, _she’s_ the one that ran. She’s disgusted with herself for even thinking it.

“Oh, you’re still _in love_ with him.” Barbara says, all seeing eyes again seeing too much.

Eleanor’s silence works as confirmation for the older woman.

“Honey…”

“Really Babs, if he’s happy that’s all I could ask for.” _Even if it’s not with me._

“That’s some self-sacrificing bullshit. You should tell him when he gets here.” She says, then something shifts in her posture, and she looks a bit uncomfortable. “But, I should tell you something first.”

“What? He’s happily married?” Eleanor jokes, trying to lighten the atmosphere. Barbara doesn’t smile, and her fingers taps the ceramic mug in an uneven pattern again.

“No, but… he was engaged. To Koriand’r. The Tamaranean.”

Her heart drops. Before she can stop herself she makes a small choked off noise. She’d met the alien princess before, when she’d visited the Titan’s tower in New York. Koriand’r was beautiful and full of energy, enough to match Dick’s. So very different from her own muted personality.

“They broke it off,” Barbara continues, blessedly ignoring the noise she just made. “And when I say ‘they broke it off’ I mean that they were attacked during the ceremony. It was six months ago? Give or take.”

“Are they still… seeing each other?”

“Not that I know. He left the Titans not long after that. Set up shop permanently in ‘Haven.”

“Right.” Eleanor says, rubbing the side of her head. She’s not quite sure what she’s supposed to do with that information.

“That’s not what I wanted to say though.” Barbara murmurs, taking a deep breath and finally looking up to meet Eleanor’s eyes. “We, Dick and I, sort of slept together.”

“Oh.” Eleanor eloquently says. She won’t get angry, she wrestles down the bitter emotion, hides it away. It would be way too hypocritical of her to get mad about it since she’d also slept with someone else. Even if she were drunk and the memory fuzzy, she’d still done that. At least Dick had known who he slept with, had been friends with them. Barbara didn’t deserve her anger.

“It was two years ago, after… After. On his eighteenth birthday,” Barbara says, rushing to explain herself. Eleanor wants to tell her it’s not necessary. But no words leave her lips. “We were a bit drunk and… I don’t know it just happened.”

“It’s okay, Barbara. You’re two consenting adults-“

“Yes, but I shouldn’t have anyway. It was wrong of me; he was still broken up about you at that point. I was just… there.” She doesn’t sound bitter about it, but there’s regret in her eyes.

“I don’t blame you, or him for that matter.” Eleanor says, reaching across the table to place her hand over Barbara’s. “I’m just glad you were there for each other. You’re still friends right?”

“Of course, Dick’s like a force of nature, you can’t help but be pulled in.” Barbara says, a hesitant smile spreading across her lips.

“He is.” Eleanor agrees. Then a third hand joins theirs, the short haired girl tilting her head slightly as she places hers over Eleanor’s. Barbara laughs, and the girl’s smile widens into a toothy grin. Eleanor thinks that this is another soul that deserves so much more than what life had dished out.

Barbara’s watch lights up and the woman withdraws her hand. “That’s the computer, I should check it out.”

Eleanor gets up after Barbara leaves, sitting down next to the girl who’s finished her food. She pauses, then holds her hand out for her hand. The girl tilts her head ever so slightly then rests her palm against Eleanor’s.

“It’s called thumb war,” she says, moving their hands to fit together properly. “The goal is to pin your opponent’s thumb. Like this.” She presses the girls thumb down, then frees it. And that’s the only time she manages to pin it down, as they play the girls speed takes Eleanor by surprise again and again. It’s worth it though, to see the smile on her face and the small, almost unnoticeable breathy laughs that spill from her lips. After a while, and numerous losses on Eleanor’s part, they switch over to rock paper scissors, which takes a bit longer for her to learn but eventually she beats Eleanor in that too.

Smiling Eleanor drops her hands then reaches up to ruffle her hair. “You’re alright kiddo.”

The kid mimics the hair ruffle and Eleanor chuckles at the absolute cuteness of the action. “Come on, let’s go check out what Babs is up to.”

When they enter the main room of the clock tower there’s a man in red and silver armour with a red cape and blonde hair tied to the back of his head, standing right next to Barbara. The girl walks past her and stands next to Barbara as if it were a practised action. Eleanor wonders if the girl feels safer next to the redhead or obliged to protect the older woman in return of her kindness.

“Azrael.” Eleanor greets the vigilante, who turns to give her a quick onceover.

“Nightingale.” Azrael replies, half a smile curling over his lips, “I didn’t know you would be here.”

“I’m not Nightingale anymore, but I’m here to help.” Eleanor replies, shaking the man’s hand. He nods his understanding then turns to greet the girl next to Barbara. The girl herself then reaches over and traces the red symbol over Azrael’s chest with a single digit before she brings her arm up bent at the elbow. Azrael gives Barbara a somewhat confused look before he mimics the girl’s movement. She then presses their forearms together and Azrael chuckles.

“I like her.”

“Yeah, me too.” Barbara muses.

Eleanor sees them before they speak up, Tim Drake has grown since their last encounter. An encounter that makes her feel queasy just thinking about. She’d been nothing but rude and out right mean to him. She can’t keep her eyes on him for very long though, for two separate reasons. The green, red and yellow of his Robin suit reminds her too much of Jason. And Dick is right behind him, looking straight at her, the white of lenses of his blue domino mask wide. She misses what Tim tells Barbara, misses what Barbara replies with as she stares at him, wanting to say something, anything.

Then Dick’s eyes leave her, and his lips quirk up in a coy smile as he looks towards the redhead. “Ah, then you must have meant me.”

“He’s delusional- ow!” Tim squeaks as Dick scuffs him on the back of the head.

“Watch it. You’re not too big to spank.” He teases, nodding at Azrael with a quick exchange of their aliases.

She watches as Dick interacts with Barbara and the girl. Feeling more like an outsider than she ever has before, even though Tim’s eyes burn into her, a neutral expression on his face. She wonders what he’s thinking. Probably something along the lines of ‘ _what’s_ she _doing here?’_. And she can’t even blame him for thinking it. Because what _is_ she doing here. It’s been two years; a lot can change in two years. They’re not just going to accept her back with open arms.

But of course, Dick has to prove her wrong.

He walks up to her, stopping just a bit too close into her personal space, just like he used to do and gives her a smile that makes her want to believe everything’s alright.

“Hey, Ellie.” Eleanor has to stop the sudden strong impulse of throwing herself on her knees in front of him to beg his forgiveness. Because despite the easy smile, and the open body language, she doesn’t need to see his eyes to know that he’s still hurting from their last conversation. A conversation where she’d called him a manipulative liar, _just like Batman._ Cursing him for becoming Robin in the first place. Her angry illogical reasoning had been that if Dick had never picked the mantle up, neither would Jason. She had indirectly blamed Dick for Jason’s death.

“Nightwing.” She croaks out. Despite how much she wants to call him by name, he’s still in uniform, and old habits die hard. She tries to give him a smile that she knows he sees through. Eleanor hasn’t been this nervous to be this close to him since she was fourteen and was crushing majorly on him.

“How have you been?” He winces at the question as it slips through his lips.

“Oh, you know.” She doesn’t exactly know what to say. “Good, I guess. Better.”

“Good.” Dick smiles another smile that’s supposed to put her at ease, all it does is make her uneasy and painfully aware that literally everyone else in the room are watching them. Honestly, a family filled with detectives and they couldn’t take a hint. All of them too damn nosey.

Eleanor clears her throat, eyes flickering back to the whites of his domino, she wishes she could see his sky-blue irises. “What about you?”

“I’m good. Have been, I mean. Keeping busy.”

“Good.”

“Good.” He echoes.

“Great!” Barbara says, “since everything’s so good why don’t you guys-.“ She’s interrupted when the girl points towards the shadows, and they all turn sharply to see Batman standing there, observing. Eleanor wonders how long he’s been there.

“It’s good to see you.” Batman says in his deep gravelly tone. “You’ve come far. Now I need you to wait here. Nightwing, you’re with me.”

Her father, who she hasn’t seen in two whole years doesn’t spare her a second glance, or a first one to begin with. Dick features turns into a frown. His domino not even hiding how his brow furrows.

“Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be?” He says, uncrossing his arms and taking a couple of steps towards the exit. “And where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Then they disappear around the corner. Barbara visibly exhales, shoulders dropping, turning back to her computer. While the girl reaches out for Tim to do her custom greeting, something that seems to perplex the teen. Azrael shuffles on his feet, then walks over to the clock wall and peers out into the Gotham skyline which leaves much to be desired. Eleanor is left standing not too far away from Barbara with her hands wrapped around her elbows as if it would help keep her standing upright.

She felt less alone back in the Himalayas.

The time Batman and Nightwing are gone, which isn’t that long, barely twenty minutes, feels like a lifetime. Coffee is served, Tim tries to sneak a cup that Barbara swiftly steers away from him. When Tim slips into the kitchen to get something else to drink Eleanor follows him. Standing silently in the doorway before she shuts it. The faint sound of it clicking shut is enough to cause him to look over his shoulder. His face betrays nothing, he’s been trained extremely well.

“Can we talk?” Eleanor asks softly, ready to open the door and leave him in peace should he want it. She doesn’t try to hide how vulnerable she feels, allows her face to betray the trepidation coursing through her.

Tim tilts his head, turning back to the kitchen bench and nods.

“The first time we met.” Eleanor starts after a long moments pause, leaning back against the closed door. “We-… _I_ didn’t do right by you.”

_“Hi, call me Tim. You’re Nightingale, right?” Big dark blue eyes gaze up at her with wonder and hero worship._

Tim doesn’t speak, so she continues. “I thought-,” she tries to bite back the heavy sigh. “It doesn’t matter what I thought, I treated you badly. Undeservedly so.”

His shoulders jump. “You were pretty stressed out about, uhm… My predecessor.”

“Jason.”

“Yeah… Him.”

“I was.” Eleanor agrees. “But that doesn’t mean you deserved to be treated like… that. Like you were unwanted.”

Tim’s whole body locks up, his shoulders drawing towards his ears in tension. That had struck a nerve. Eleanor wasn’t stupid, she hadn’t spent the entire time in the Himalayas cooking and doing yoga. Ra’s had surprisingly good internet connection hooked up at the palace. She’d done her research. Timothy Jackson Drake. Son of archaeologists Jack and Janet Drake, he’d spent most of his childhood alone in a large mansion ‘down the street’ from the Wayne manor with only his nanny looking after him while his parents travelled the world for different digs. She didn’t have to be a genius to guess he had issues with abandonment. Shit, she had those same issues. At times she’d thought that Bruce didn’t want her at all.

“I’m so sorry that I hurt you like that Tim.”

She had Alfred, she had Dick, she had Jason. Even Bruce when he wasn’t busy with The Mission. Tim had no one and she’d brushed him off like yesterday’s garbage.

“You don’t have to say anything or accept the apology.” Eleanor says when Tim doesn’t respond. “I just… just wanted you to know that I never meant to be so dismissive. No one deserves to be alone.”

He still doesn’t move, doesn’t even acknowledge that she’s spoken. Eleanor closes her eyes, hides her disappointment.

“Right.” She mumbles. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

Eleanor just manages to grip the door handle when Tim speaks up.

“Wait.”

She does, not turning around.

“Thank you.” He says quietly, almost too softly for her to hear. “It means something, to hear you say that, I mean.”

She drops the door handle, turning around to face him properly. He too has turned around and has taken a step towards her. There’s a slight flush to his cheeks, embarrassment or anger she’s not sure, but there’s no trace of the latter in his body language. It’s not for the first time this short evening that Eleanor wishes she could see his eyes. Eyes are so very expressive.

“Do-over?” She asks hesitantly. His lips twitch into a small smile.

“I’m Tim Drake,” he says, holding his hand out. “High school freshman, or I will be after summer.”

“Eleanor Wayne.” She replies, grasping his gloved hand in her own. “I never went to college.”

Tim snorts, and they sit down by the kitchen table. Talking about their hobbies, which quickly turns into a debate on which martial weapon is the best one. Which leads to both of them agreeing that the bō-staff is vastly superior to any other weapon, and then into fighting techniques. And he tells her his extensive training throughout the world, how Batman made him train for nearly a year before he was allowed to patrol with him, and how Lady Shiva was one of his mentors.

“Hang on,” Eleanor says, holding a hand up in a universal stop sign. “B let you train with Shiva?”

“In Hong Kong, to be honest with you. She scares the crap out of me.” He chuckles, white teeth flashing in a timid smile. “She’s a good teacher though when she wasn’t all assassin-y. You trained with Ra’s right?” Tim shifts in his seat, then continues when he sees her grimace “sorry, didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“No, it’s alright.” Eleanor assures. “I didn’t train with Ra’s exactly, but I did train with his daughter. Talia.”

“I’ve seen her file.” He says, “but never met her, what’s she like?”

Eleanor purses her lips, pondering on the question. Then offers a simple, “she likes to talk. But she knows her stuff. The training we did was mostly stealth training, she likes her guns too much for me to take serious weapon training from her. What about Shiva?”

“She was… calculating. Really good at fighting, in fact it’s the only thing I ever saw her do. Most of my time spent with her I was getting my ass kicked.” He snorts then. “She used to call me ‘little bird’.”

Eleanor smiles. “That’s what dad used to call me.”

“Really?” Tim asks, leaning forward in curiosity.

“Yeah. Dick was ‘chum’.”

The fourteen-year-old huffs another laugh.

“Dick had a bunch of nicknames for all of us. I swear he used to make them up on the fly.”

“What did he call you?”

“Ellie.” She says, with a fond roll of her eyes. And some other things she wasn’t going to share with the teen. No matter how scary smart he was. “Jason was ‘little wing’.” Her smile becomes bittersweet, Tim drops his shoulders slightly.

“I’m sorry I never met him.” He mumbles, picking at his gloves. “I used to take pictures of you guys; you know?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, once I figured out Dick was Robin.”

“How did you do that anyway?”

“Well…” Tim scratches the back of his head. “I saw him perform at the circus; he did a quadruple somersault. Then I saw Robin do the exact same move on TV when I was nine. Dick Grayson got taken in by Bruce Wayne. It wasn’t that hard to draw conclusions after that.”

“Figures,” Eleanor snarks without heat. “Always the performer, that one.” She tilts her head then, blinking at him. “So, you went out and took pictures of us for _years_ without any of us noticing. When you were _nine._ ”

“Heh, yeah.” Tim nods, looking bashful.

“You certainly put the _wonder_ in Boy Wonder, don’t you?”

His responding laugh is a bit nervous.

“I think Jason would have liked you,” she says then. “You’re smart, like he was. He used to love school. Did extra credit work rather than train most of the time.”

“I… used to watch the training videos of you two.” Tim admits, playing with his fingers. “It always ended with playfighting.”

Eleanor sniggers, biting at her bottom lip. “It used to drive B insane, he was always so serious about our training, but Jason… well, the hardest part for him was the discipline, the rules. He rebelled against it, no matter who it came from.”

“You really think he would have liked me?” Tim stills when he asks the question, sounding hesitant.

“Jason has…” Eleanor closes her eyes at the slip, feeling that familiar pain in her chest. “Had. Jason had always had issues with getting close to people, remnants of living on the streets.” She explains. “Once you gained his trust, his loyalty was unending. It might have taken him a while. But yeah, I think he would have.”

Tim’s head drops a bit, staring at his hands. She wonders what’s going through his head, she wonders if he thinks that if Jason had never died, Tim wouldn’t have gotten the chance of being Robin. She wonders if that train of thought bothers him. Sensei used to say that everything happened for a reason, every death had a purpose. But it was hard to think that Jay’s death had purpose when the man that killed him was an evil, chaotic murderer, who only killed him to get at Batman.

Maybe it did. Eleanor hadn’t known Tim before Jason died. She couldn’t say for sure if his life would have ended up better if he hadn’t gotten involved with the Batclan. She knew that his mother died from some cultist known as Obeah Man. It had been all over the news. Janet Drake had died of poison, Jack Drake had ended up in a coma that he only just recently had gotten out of. If Tim hadn’t been Robin, would Batman had saved Tim’s father? Would he even have known that the boy’s parents down the street needed saving?

When Tim eventually looks back up at her, he’s got a small smile on his lips, one that she thinks is practised. He glances over her shoulder towards the door.

“We should probably re-join the others.”

“Of course.” She stands up with him and places a hand on his shoulder as he walks past her. “Hey, Tim? Thank you, for helping my dad.”

He ducks his head in embarrassment again, then nods.


	2. ...But you give it to me anyway

If someone told Eleanor two years ago that she would be running catch up across broken rooftops in Gotham City wearing an uncomfortable Kevlar under suit and a piece of flimsy cloth over her eyes as the only thing to protect her identity she would have called them crazy.

Yet here she was.

Trying to catch up with Nightwing as he definitely doesn’t hold back in his swings. It’s both awe inspiring and intimidating to see him work again. The first Nightwing suit he’d designed was dark blue in colour with a light blue stripe across his chest and shoulders. Much like John Grayson’s performance leotard had been. This new one was black, with brilliant blue wings stretching across his chest and over his back, down his arms. Encapsulating his middle and ring finger on each hand. And admittedly she might have been a bit distracted by it, and thus not keeping up like she normally would have.

He also hadn’t stopped to talk to her after Batman had told them. _“Within twenty-four hours Nightwing and Blackbird will be inside Blackgate. Within forty-eight hours, Blackgate will be under their_ complete _control.”_

Blackbird.

She hadn’t even mentioned that she’d thought of taking up that name. Bruce had still known somehow.

Eleanor is _not_ out of breath by the time she catches up with Dick. She _might_ be slightly panting, and he definitely sees it as he peers over his shoulder before she can regulate her breathing.

“Out of shape?”

“Unfamiliar gear,” she says, waving her hand in excuse. “It’s a bit heavy.”

Dick hums noncommittally under his breath.

“Is this a good time to talk?” She asks, and Dick, he stills almost comically, then turns to look at her with parted lips and wide eyes.

“I guess… I-… It’s great to have you back. I’ve missed talking to you and I’m so relieved you’re alright, but-.” He starts, running his fingers through his hair. Eleanor opens her mouth to speak and he interrupts her.

“It hurt when you left, especially after that, uhm… argument we had. I was worried about you, you know? Donna said that maybe you needed time to think and work things out on your own otherwise I would have called, I swear.”

“Nightwing.”

“Then Babs,” he clears his throat. “Uh, Babs said you’d willingly dropped off the radar with Ra’s and I was so angry with you that you didn’t come home or at least called or texted.”

“Nightwing.” Eleanor tries again, reaching up with a hand to try and stop him as her cheeks flush from embarrassment and shame.

“And I started dating Kori and I thought maybe I could get over you but that failed spectacularly. A-and Roy tried to help out, we kind of had this on-and-off thing going, but he had his own stuff to deal with, he has a daughter now did you know? Her name is Lian, she’s adorable.”

Her hand drops. Dick takes another deep breath.

“I’m still kind of… No, I am still mad at you, we swore to each other when we were kids we’d always stay in contact, no matter what. And you’ve been gone for almost _two years_ with no word at all. Not to mention the fact that you blamed _me_ for Jay-.” He stops, drawing his shoulders up and crossing his arms as if he’s holding himself together. “You blamed _me_ for Jay’s death and I-… _You_ weren’t the only one hurting Eleanor.”

She can’t even look at him when she speaks then in a quiet, pathetic voice that is almost drowned out by the wind this high up. “I wanted to talk about your plans for Blackgate.”

“Oh.” He says, his Adams apple bobbing as he swallows. His hands drop and he swings them idly against his sides, a nervous tick she recognizes. “Uhm. Right. I was going to infiltrate it, have you on standby in the upper levels. With your gear being… less than optimal, it would be safer.”

“Okay.” Eleanor replies in the same quiet voice. She catches the surprise on his face before he can cool his expression.

“Okay?”

“I don’t want to argue with you Di-Nightwing.” She mumbles, meeting his eyes, or rather, the white of the domino. Tries to stop herself from crying because that would mess up her makeshift mask, and she’s so very tired of crying. “If you think it’s best for me to just do recon I will.”

“Right.” He mumbles. Then his shoulders sag and he reaches up to rub at the bridge of his nose. “About what I said.”

“No, it’s… you don’t have to explain yourself.”

“It was harsh.”

“But true. I wronged you, so badly. Hurt you because I was hurting. A-and that doesn’t…” Eleanor shifts on the balls of her feet. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness Dick. What I said, what I implied…” She sniffles. “I’ll try my best to make it up to you if you let me, I’m _so, so very_ sorry.”

Of all the responses she expects, a hug really should have been higher on the list. It’s Dick Grayson she’s talking to after all. Yet it still catches her completely off guard. Dick’s arms wrap around her shoulders, tugging her close enough that she can smell that familiar shampoo, even after two years it still hasn’t changed from being citrusy. Eleanor buries her face against his neck, wraps her arms around his middle and clings to the fabric of his suit, taking slow shuddering breaths. Dick’s cheek pressing against the side of her head in return, nose buried in her sloppily braided hair, and one of his hands cup the back of her head, clinging to her just as tightly. They’re not okay. The broken trust between them isn’t something that will be solved in one conversation. But they’ve taken the first steps of the journey. Eleanor doesn’t particularly want to let him go, but they do have a job to do. So, she ever so gently moves her hands away and Dick takes half a step back.

“Let’s get to work before the old man shows up to scold us.”

He nods with a somewhat playful smirk on his lips.

They swim across the bay, which would have been a terrible idea four months ago, but the water is cleaner than it has been in probably over a hundred years or more. Worse than that though is, it’s _cold_. They’re just coming out of winter, it’s the end of March. Nightwing’s suit is insulated against it, and so is her Kevlar under-suit to a point, the difference is. Dick’s suit is specifically tailored to him. The one she’s wearing is a size bigger, so the gaps fill with the cold bay water and she shudders terribly once they reach the shores of Blackgate Penitentiary.

“You okay?” Dick whispers when he’s removed his diving gear. Eleanor smiles a toothy smile, forcing her teeth to stop clacking against each other.

“I’m good.” She tries to sound as cheerful as she can while not being too loud or tremble like a leaf, all the while offering a thumbs up. Dick looks very sceptical.

“Come here,” he says, pressing something on his gauntlet and tugging her in close. “It’s a one-time use,” he murmurs as he places her arms around his neck. “But it should be enough to warm you up.”

“Thanks.” Eleanor murmurs into his chest, pressing her cheek against the heated cloth over his heart. It feels very nice. “When did you install this?”

“Before this winter, my suit might be insulated against the cold, but I don’t like freezing my balls off during stakeouts.” She huffs a laugh against him, feeling comfortable with his hand rubbing up and down her back. It’s so easy to let herself fall into the familiarity of his arms, to forget the past two years. Which means as soon as she’s warmed up enough and no longer trembling she pulls away from him, yet again.

Eleanor drums her fingers against her newly acquired grapple gun, it’s Barbara’s old one. There’s a small almost unnoticeable BG scraped on the inside of the handle, with what she can only assume was a batarang. When Eleanor spotted it, she didn’t know whether to curse or laugh. Had Babs scraped that in because of Batgirl, or Barbara Gordon. Eleanor would ask the older woman once they got back to the clocktower.

“Ready?” Dick asks, doing another quick gear check-up.

“Whenever you are Boy Wonder.” There’s a flash of white teeth against the tanned gold of his skin when he smirks. Eleanor lifts her hand; index finger pulling the hair light trigger and watches the grapple hook fly and connect to the exact spot she’d aimed for. She wonders if it’s always going to be as exhilarating as the first time to feel the G’s tug at her, as she flies up the side of the rock foundation, then the prison complex itself. Eleanor has enough time while being reeled in to watch Dick slip through the walls of the building, and the fluttering in her stomach has nothing to do with the height once she lands.

The view of the bay is beautiful this high up, the sun shines down upon the waves making it sparkle like stars across an endless ocean. And despite the stunning beauty in front of her, all Eleanor can think of is how absolutely gorgeous Dick looks when he smiles. She has to get a grip, because flirting with him in their fragile new start would end up disastrous. Barbara’s observation from earlier still rings in her ears though. 

_“Oh, you’re still_ in love _with him.”_

And oh, she is so right.

Eleanor would like nothing more than to pick up where they left off, to feel his calloused fingers on the scars littering her body. Of his lips caressing her own in a kiss that would leave them both gasping for breath. Prop her head up on his chest and feel the rhythmic beat of his heart that tells her he’s alive and well within her arms. It would be wonderful and perfect and very fleeting. Because despite what all the romance books and movies said, broken trust isn’t something you mend over a day, or a week or a month.

And without trust, what was a relationship but doomed to fail.

She has to get out of her own head.

Eleanor tucks her grapple back into its proper place on her belt, then slowly makes her way across the thin ledge of the upper prison walls. The constant beat of the sea breeze makes the stonework slippery; it takes her longer than she’d like to get across to slip in through the warden’s office. There are no electrical alarms to worry about, in fact the hardest bit is to not lose her balance and cut herself on the smashed glass as she reaches through the metal bars to open the latch on the other side.

It’s eerily quiet when she gets through the warden’s door, she doesn’t bother stopping to look at any of the paperwork, she knew that the _former_ warden himself had been quick to evacuate after the earthquake four months ago. Of course, no one had bothered to evacuate the criminals, leaving them to their own devices. Eleanor isn’t sure if she’s at all surprised by the callousness of the government’s decision or not.

Any of the cells she comes across as she stealthily makes her way across the prison are empty, so where are all the prisoners?

Then there’s gunfire and shouting coming from the other wing and she quickly makes her way over there on the overhead railings. Her first impulse is to tackle the gunmen, who she recognizes as the Trigger Twins, but not from their guns. No. It’s from the ridiculous cowboy outfits and heavy Texan accents as they go hollering after a blur of black and blue. The fourth man joining the fray is KGBeast. And though the twins are considered threats in their own might, the Beast of Russia is considerably more lethal. She stays put where she is. Even when she hears Dick’s garbled yelp, even when she sees him slumped over the Trigger Twins’ shoulders. She almost leaps down when they try to undo his suit, and again when they start beating his unconscious form up after getting zapped by the defence mechanism.

It’s so very difficult to allow Dick to be tossed down the hole with the other prisoners, to trust in his plan rather than to jump down there and bust him out. He had said he wanted to infiltrate the place; he hadn’t mentioned how. So, Eleanor waits. She meditates, she maps the prison out, makes mental notes of any deviation caused by the earthquake from the original plans. She listens in on Lock-Up aka Lyle Bolton and his minions talking, mostly nonsense about wanting booze, or women or guns. Sometimes all three at the same time. Then Eleanor overhears something that makes her feel cold all over, she has to place her hand over her mouth to stop any noise from leaving because… because…

“Damn savages, cannibalism? Seriously? Not even a fuckin’ cape deserves that.”

Before she can do anything rash she checks her gauntlet, there’s been no emergency defib alerts, nothing to support what she’s overheard. No evidence, yet her heart keeps beating like she’s preparing to go ten rounds with Bane. She makes her way back to the grate where they’d tossed him in, hoping to catch a glimpse of black and blue in the darkness. If it’s a ruse… not if. _Since_ it’s a ruse, he’s smart enough to stay away from direct eyesight.

Eleanor will have to risk it. Picking up a loose piece of concrete no larger than her palm she starts to tap out ‘ _N E T_ ’ in Morse code against the metal she’s sat on. A question only he would understand, they developed it when they were nine and ten, respectively. She waits thirty seconds in between each tap of the word. On the fifth tap she hears a faint but noticeable pattern being tapped back.

..-. .-.. -.-

_F L Y_

Safe. It meant he was safe, or as safe as he could be.

Then another word starts flowing through in rapid taps, Eleanor mouths the letters silently until Dick’s point comes across and it makes her eyes widen. Okay then.

When they’d first gotten the mission from B, both of them had gone over the blueprints for Blackgate, memorised it. So, if she were correct, there was only one path Dick would take to get out of there. She sets up in the storage room, makes sure to cover all the exits and entrances, cracks one of the crates open to find it packed with different types of canned food as well as protein bars and cereal, pasta. Longevity stuff. And that’s one crate. There are enough of them to feed Blackgate for months. Eleanor would whistle if she didn’t need to keep quiet. Who knew Bolton actually took care of the prisoners? Or maybe he let them partially starve before he let them fight over scraps. She wouldn’t put the cruelty past him.

She puts the lid back over the crate and scales back up to the rafters, perching on the overhead pipes that goes from one side of the room to the other. As the hours tick by she can’t help but starting to feel restless. Dick had told her to not get involved, her gear wasn’t optimal. The logical part of her brain saw the rationality in it, if things went wrong it was easier for her to get hurt. The other part was cursing herself for letting him take charge like that, throw himself to the sharks with no net, like he always did. Before, when she’d called him out on it all Dick would offer in reply was; _“I’m a flying Grayson, jumping without looking is what I do.”_ Which of course he knew Eleanor found both endearing and infuriating. The reason why she’d come back to begin with was because she couldn’t just sit by anymore and let her loved ones take risks Eleanor knew she could help with. And now because she desperately wanted their approval back she’d let Dick get himself surrounded by criminals who would see him dead the moment he showed any kind of weakness.

There had to be a compromise.

The large explosion rocking the stone walls is enough to pull her out of her head, and she looks down to see KGBeast make his way over to the metal grating lying to one side over a large hole at the centre of the room with tick chains hanging down into it. Chains that starts to rattle as if someone’s climbing them. Then a voice down the hole shouts about peeling off someone else’s skin and wearing it, and the chains rattling increases.

Taking on the Beast in a one on one fight would be difficult, if not impossible with his cybernetically enhanced strength and speed and her subpar gear, and with the crates filling the room up to limit her space it would be very dangerous for her. Eleanor has one advantage though; the Beast doesn’t know she’s there.

And luckily, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

She hooks her grapple to the pipes and swings down, kicking the Beast straight in the back and forcing him down the spherical hole, when she looks down it she can see him take out several other creepy crawlies, with Dick flattening himself against the wall to avoid the same fate. Eleanor holds her hand down to help him to his feet.

Dick’s suit is torn almost to pieces, he’s got bruises and cuts all over and he smells like salt water, sweat and gunpowder. He looks like hell, but he still smiles when he grabs her extended hand and leverages himself up with agile move that bends his legs in a way that makes her feel a little jealous. Before either of them can say anything though they’re forced to dive apart to search for the nearest cover as bullets starts whistling past them. One of said bullet catches her at the back of her thigh, and though the Kevlar stops it from going through her it still hurts like a bitch.

“What are you shooting at?” Eleanor hears Bolton shout, and the rapid approach of footsteps.

“That feller Nightwing,” one of the Trigger Twins says, Tad? No, the other one. Tom.

“An’ a girl too. Seems the rumours of his demise were premature.”

As stealthily as she can while they’re talking, which is pretty damn stealthy (thanks Talia), Eleanor ignores the stab of pain from the forming bruise on her leg and scales up the crates. Searching for Dick anywhere in the mess of the room.

“Two of them?”

“Yeah, and Nightwing crawled up outta there, Boss.”

“Then the others will try it too.” Eleanor spots him crouched down by the whole, chains still not rattling. “You two find the little creeps. I’ll wait here.”

“Dead or alive, boss?” Tom, no wait – Tad asks.

“You decide.”

Anything else said is deafened by the roar of a machine coming to life and before either of the three villains can react crate after crate are pushed in their direction. When everything settles, the machines turns off and Dick stumbles out of it, Bolton, Tom and Tad are all passed out in the mess of supplies and cracked wood. Eleanor leaps down in time to catch Dick as he unsteadily tries to move some of the supplies away.

“Hey now,” she murmurs, throwing his arm over her shoulder. “Let me do all that okay? You need to rest.”

“Need to make a call.” He mumbles, wincing when their movement agitates his wounds.

“Just let me help you, okay?”

Dick grunts wordlessly but doesn’t protest, she sits him down somewhere relatively clean and quickly makes her way over to the mess of supplies, digging out the criminals stuck in it and making sure they’re not wounded too badly before cuffing them all to the iron cells in the other room. Then also makes sure to confiscate any items that could be used to get out of the cuffs, she doubts any of them has the skill to do so, but it never hurts to prepare for the worst, and also removes any weapons.

By the time Eleanor gets back to where she left Dick, he’s slumped against the concrete wall, mask still protecting his eyes enough that she can’t tell if he’s watching her or not. When he doesn’t react to her approach though she feels panic starts to rise.

“Hey,” she cups his face with one hand, shakes his shoulder loosely with the other. “You can’t nap here, Nightwing.”

He doesn’t respond.

She bites her glove away and presses two of her fingers against his neck, feeling his pulse weakly thump against them. Her relief is short lived however, as she notices how clammy and cold he is. Eleanor tries shaking him again, feeling a bit calmer when his hand shoots up to grip her upper arm.

“’M awake.” Dick slurs.

“Come on, Boy Wonder.” Eleanor says, forcing her tone to remain light, and reaching out to hoist him up by once again throwing his arm over her shoulder. “You can sleep once we get to O’s.”

“Sleep.” He agrees, taking a couple of stumbling steps with her, head bobbing in what Eleanor can only assume is a nod.

They scarcely manage to get out of the prison before Dick goes limp against her, and this time no amount of shaking wakes him. His pulse remains somewhat steady, but she still feels panic rise inside her. Eleanor adjusts him with some difficulty. Despite his lean body type, Dick is all muscle and he’s way heavier than he looks. She’s just lucky they’re the same height.

“Hang on Dickie.” She whispers when they make it cross the Blackgate bridge. “Just hang on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter takes place during Nightwing (1996) #37


	3. Can't get enough, you're everything I need

_You never give up_   
_When I'm falling apart_   
_Your arms are always open wide_   
_And you're quick to forgive_   
_When I make a mistake_   
_You love me in the blink of an eye_

“How is he?” Barbara asks, handing her a bowl of lukewarm water. Eleanor dips the fresh towel in it, before replacing the one over Dick’s forehead. Then puts it down on the bedside table.

“His temp has gone down a bit,” she murmurs, pressing the back of her hand against Dick’s feverish cheek. “But it’s still too high. I’m going to redress the wound.”

She pulls the thin blanket down, exposing the gauze just below the left side of his ribs. Though he had other stab and slash wounds, this one had been the worst one. It was infected, no doubt from the less than clean water he’d spent almost thirty-eight hours in. They’d managed to wake him up long enough for him to take an antibiotic pill when Eleanor had finally managed to get back to the clocktower, but after that he’d passed out and hadn’t woken up again.

Eleanor had told Barbara how taking Blackgate back had gone down, and she didn’t need meta powers to realise that the woman was furious at her. Even now Barbara is biting down on a scolding that they’re both acutely aware Eleanor had already given herself.

Stupid to let him go off on his own. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

_A part of her argues that she couldn’t have stopped Dick if she tried. He might be the most agreeable out of all of them, but he was still stubborn to a fault._

Eleanor removes the old gauze, cleans the wound carefully and replaces it with the new one. Trying to hide her worry by keeping her hands busy, it’s stressing to see him so still. Even when he was sick he’d loudly complain and beg for attention. The worst patient ever.

Now his sickly pale face and shallow breaths make Eleanor feel nauseous. _If he needs a hospital…_ The closest thing was Leslie’s clinic. A clinic that was understaffed and undersupplied.

“He’s going to be okay.” Barbara says, her voice startling Eleanor out of her building panic. “He’s too damn stubborn to let something like this keep him down.”

Eleanor hums weakly in agreement, packing away the first aid kid and putting it on the nightstand, picking up the bowl of lukewarm water instead. She removes the towel from Dick’s forehead, dips it in the water and squeezes any excess out, then methodically starts to wipe away any sweat over his forehead and down by his neck, trying to keep him cool.

The older woman sighs, checks the IV hanging by the bedside before she rolls herself out of the room. Pausing by the door briefly. “Don’t forget to eat something yourself, Eleanor. You’ll do no one any good by moping at his side.”

Eleanor grimaces, but bobs her head in an acknowledging nod.

She does end up taking Barbara’s advice. She eats, showers and dresses in somewhat ill-fitting clothes. Eleanor didn’t exactly bring much with her, and Barbara’s clothes… well. The sweatpants hike up over her ankles and she has to tie them up tightly over her waist, and the t-shirt lifts up to show her belly whenever she reaches for something. Barbara’s couch is a terribly uncomfortable place to nap on, so Eleanor ends up in one of the chairs in her bedroom instead. Half sleeping, half watching over Dick as he fights off the infection.

Barbara’s in and out of the room several times over the night, never failing to give her ‘tsk’ noises of disapproval for slouching in the chair no doubt, while she changes the bandages and wipes Dick down with cool water.

Eleanor is startled awake by whimpering noises sometime during the night, and by night she means morning. Though it’s still raining outside and it’s dark enough to get a false sense of night time. She moves over to Dick, sitting down by the side of the bed and grips his hand in hers. His face is scrounged up in a frown and he’s twitching ever so slightly. Muscles tensing and relaxing as if he’s having a nightmare.

“Shh,” Eleanor hushes, “it’s okay Dick, you’re okay.” She combs her fingers through his hair soothingly and presses the back of her other hand against his forehead. Not as warm as before.

Dick murmurs something so quietly she can’t make out what it is. Then his breath hitches and he let out a soft whine.

_“Daj…”_

Eleanor almost doesn’t catch it. But she does recognize the word, her Romani had always been shaky at best. But that particular word was imbedded in her brain, because Dick had cried it almost every night for weeks when he’d first moved in to the manor.

_Mom._

The room Dick had been given had been larger than the entire trailer he spent the first eight years of his life in. One night he’d fallen asleep in her room, they’d been playing video games and then watched Treasure Planet two times because it was both of their favourite. The next day when they’d woken up he’d looked more rested than he had during his entire stay.

So, her seven-year-old logical brain had concluded that he needed her to sleep better, and it was like having a sleepover _every night_ , and that thought alone was exciting for her. Sometimes they stayed in her room, sometimes she’d sneak into his and crawl into his bed. Back then, she’d thought them quite sneaky. Looking back however, Eleanor was certain that both dad and Alfred had known.

Of course, just her presence alone didn’t stop the nightmares, it lessened them certainly. But didn’t stop them all together. As they grew older the nightmares became far and few between, Eleanor had gotten quite good at soothing them. So, she falls back on old habits.

Carefully not to agitate any of his wounds or wake him, she shifts onto her knees in front of the bed. Normally, back when they were kids, she’d sit by the headboard, and have him rest against her, but she doesn’t want to warm him up any more than he already is. Instead Eleanor combs her fingers through his hair and hums that Romani lullaby that Mary had sung to him when he was little as she leans close to his ear. She doesn’t remember the exact words, but Dick subconsciously shifts closer to her, hopefully recognizing the song.

He breathes out another chocked, _“daj”_ , his brow furrowing and a tear slips down from the corner of his eye. Then continues mumbling in Romani. _“Wake up…”_

Eleanor’s heart breaks a little, he must be dreaming about the night his parents died. Part of her wants to shake him awake, but she knew that if she did that it would disrupt his sleep, and he needed it to heal. So instead she keeps humming the lullaby, gently raking her fingers across his sweat drenched mop of black hair. Watching him as soft whimpers in his mother tongue turns into shaky inhales and then to slow and steady breathing.

The next thing she knows she feels warm fingers on her cheek, and she leans into the touch, sleep weighing down her eyelids as she rests her head against the soft mattress. Eleanor makes a soft noise of protest when the fingers disappear and blearily she opens her eyes to meet the sky-blue (she swears they’re luminous) irises of Dick.

Her fingers are still tangled into his hair and she gently scrape her nails against his scalp before she can properly wake up. Dick’s eyes flutter close for a moment, it takes Eleanor point three seconds to realise what she’s doing, and she quickly tries to move her hand away from the intimate touch. Of course, she’s completely tangled in the black curls, so when she yanks hard on her hand she tugs hard on his hair and the breathy moan that leaves Dick’s lips is probably not entirely voluntary because his eyes open quickly, and he clears his throat, embarrassment flashing over his face.

All it does to Eleanor however is bring her back two years ago, from a particularly harsh mission with the Titan’s involving Deathstroke. They’d luckily gotten back to the tower with only minor bruises and cuts, but they’d been high on adrenaline and been so damn happy to be alive that they hadn’t been able to keep their hands to themselves.

They’d barely managed to get out of their suits before Dick had pulled her into his bed where they’d rocked together with Eleanor straddling his hips and her fingers tangled in his hair. Now, Dick wasn’t a fan of pain in bed, and neither was Eleanor, they had enough of that already as vigilantes. But he loved to have his hair pulled, tugged or messed with. Something she was more than happy to comply with.

 _“You date me for my hair.”_ He’d jokingly said once.

 _“And your eyes.”_ She’d winked back. Not that she wasn’t partial to the rest of him.

“Ellie?” His voice calls her back from the memory playing like a record in her head, Eleanor feels a blush crawl up her face.

“Sorry.” Then, to change the subject before he can make a comment that inevitably would make things awkward, _because that’s just how he works._ “How are you feeling?”

Dick reaches up to rub at his now three-day stubble – and yeah, he can pull that off too.

“Like I need a shower, and a shave.”

She fights the impulse to roll her eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” he says, smirking. The bastard. “I’m fine, Ellie. Don’t worry so much.”

Eleanor huffs. “You were unresponsive the entire journey back to the Clocktower, I think I’ll reserve my rights to worry.”

His eyes soften. “Thank you, and not just for getting me back here. But for staying with me during the night. Babs came in a while ago and told me you refused to leave.”

Tattletale.

“You would have done the same.” Eleanor replies lightly, offering him a smile. A smile he returns tenfold. It’s like staring into the damn sun. If Eleanor were poetic, which she’d like to think she was, she would tell him that he was so beautiful he blinded her. And she couldn’t possibly ever look at anyone else because all she would see would be the spots he left behind.

“Yeah, well. It’s good to have you back, you know. I-…” He cuts himself off and then his warm – but not feverish – hand covers hers, he gives her a meaningful look. An adoring look.

“Dick…” Eleanor murmurs, fully biting back the impulse to give him an equally adoring look back.

She doesn’t miss the disappointment in his eyes when she moves her hand away from his. Dick turns his head to stare up at the ceiling. His jaw clenched tightly. The rejection hurting, despite her good intentions. Eleanor just can’t let him fall headfirst into this though.

“I thought-.” He cuts himself off. “Never mind.”

She breathes out sharply. “We can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Right.” Dick echoes.

“Dick,” Eleanor says again, shifting on the floor to get rid of the numb feeling in her legs. “If we… Fuck. I love you. I’ll _always_ love you.”

Dick looks at her again, and whatever hope has crawled out at her words are squashed when he sees her face. He swallows thickly, then softly asks. “But?”

“Could you honestly say you trust me right now?”

“With my life.” He replies instantly, and she wants to curse him for it.

“And with your heart?”

Dick looks away, a shadow falling over his eyes. His silence is her answer. A heavy, almost suffocating, pregnant pause follows.

“I could again, _we_ could again. It can’t just… Not like this. Please Eleanor, don’t… Don’t leave.” The _again_ is unspoken, but she hears it anyway.

“I’m not leaving,” she says, even though she can tell he doesn’t believe her. “I swear to you Dick, I’m not going anywhere. Never again okay? I made so many mistakes, and I can blame it all I like on circumstance, but it was _my_ choice to do it. I know I don’t deserve it, but please, if just on this one. Trust me when I say that I won’t make the same mistake again.”

Eleanor wants to reach out and grab his hand or tug him into a hug. But she knows that if she grabbed a hold of him now, she’d never let go again. For a long while he doesn’t reply, his mouth moving as if he’s bitten into something bitter.

“Now what?”

 _I don’t know_. Eleanor wants to say, instead she says nothing.

“You love me, and I love you,” Dick’s breath catches, his eyes closing for a brief moment. “But you don’t want to be with me.” He turns and gives her a dark look. Reminding her that the man behind the smiles and easy-going attitude, very much has a temper of his own. “Now what?” He demands again.

“That’s not true.” Eleanor says, because she does so very badly want to be with him.

“So, I’m a liar now.” He bites out. “ _Again._ ”

“Dick,” she starts to say. Dick rolls his eyes.

“Whatever, Eleanor.”

He’s being petulant, and it’s working wonders on her own temper.

“Stop doing that. Stop saying that. I’ve thought about you every day since-… since…”

“Since you accused me of being responsible for Jason’s death?” There’s a cruel smile on his lips. “That’s sweet.”

“Dick.”

He just stares at her angrily.

“If we just start where we left off,” Eleanor murmurs, trying to keep her voice even, calm. “It wouldn’t go well, you know that.” They would burn bright for a while, surrounded by love and lust. When reality set in, they would crash, and it would break them. She was so sure of that.

“Do I? Or is that something you’ve decided?” Dick pinches the bridge of his nose. “What do you want from me Eleanor?”

“I-… I want to be friends. I want it to be like when we were kids when we told each other everything.”

“Friends.” He mutters darkly, then meets her gaze again. “And what about what I want?”

“I can’t give you what you want, Dick.” She tries to be gentle when she says it, tries to convey that she doesn’t mean to hurt him. He doesn’t see it, because he doesn’t _want_ to see it.

“Why the hell not?!” Dick snarls.

“Because I don’t trust myself!” Eleanor shouts back, and the tears that had been prickling at the corner of her eyes fall down her cheeks. “Dammit.” She reaches up to wipe away the evidence, then looks at him, seeing the uncertainty play in his beautiful eyes. And Eleanor hates herself for hurting him again.

“I don’t trust myself to not break your heart again, okay?” Eleanor’s beyond trying to keep her voice even, and she sniffles out the sentence between shaky inhales. “I have nightmares about it Dickie, I see the crushed look on your face, and I know that I’m responsible for it. I might as well have ripped your heart out of your chest and stomped on it. A-and it breaks my heart to know that I’m responsible for so much pain… I can’t risk doing that to you again. I can’t do that to myself.”

A deep breath, “a-and I don’t know how the future will look, I just know that I can’t risk losing you, not again. Please, not again.”

Dick blinks rabidly, tears welling out of his eyes, making the sky-blue shine and glitter. Eleanor hates that he can still be beautiful when he cries. Crying is supposed to be ugly, red rimmed eyes, flushed face and snotty. Dick is gorgeously, breathtakingly lovely… Not even crying could take that away from him.

He leverages himself up on one arm, ignoring the alarmed look on her face when he twists several of his injuries, to press his forehead against hers.

“Okay.” He says, “we go slow… friends, just like when we were kids. Get to know each other again.” Dick’s free hand grasp her own. “Then… maybe, in the future… We can try again?”

There’s so much hope in his voice that it threatens to send her into another hysteric crying round. Yet, despite the fear, despite the niggling voice in her head that tells her they will never be like they were, they will never be fixed. _They’re just too broken._

Eleanor smiles through her tears.

“Maybe we can.”


	4. You never give up, When I'm falling apart

The massive steel ‘W’ of her family’s company hangs crooked on the tallest building still standing in Gotham. Above it, her last name is missing the ‘A’ and ‘E’. Eleanor wonders absentmindedly, how many people had sought shelter in the building after the earthquake. How many had been turned away by security before the government had declared Gotham, No Man’s Land.

She knew now that many families lived there thanks to Batman having taken back the territory that previously had belonged to Two-Face. There was even a vegetable garden growing in the penthouse suite.

“Do you think it’ll ever return to normal?” She asks into the cold open air, feeling his gaze on her rather than hearing him approach.

“Hm.” Is the low growly reply she gets. “In time.”

Eleanor wonders if they’re talking about the building, Gotham or her.

She peers over her shoulder seeing him standing on the floor below her, his cowl still up. No emotion visible on his face. Throwing her legs over the edge of the wall, Eleanor drops down the ten feet drop with similar grace to that of a cat. He’s tall enough for her to need to look up to meet the white lenses of the cowl.

“Dad.” She says hesitantly, unsure how to proceed now and a bit unnerved by his silence. To her complete and utter astonishment, Batman reaches up and pushes back his cowl, revealing sweaty black strands and a clear line of cleaner skin from his cheekbones and up. She swallows thickly in the overbearing silence, then her father reaches out and places a heavy hand on her shoulder before he pulls her in to a tight hug.

The noise she makes is somewhat between a squawk and a whimper. Tears build and fall from the corner of her eyes, wetting the grimy – she doesn’t really care about the dirt – armour of the bat symbol on his chest. Gloved fingers tangle into her hair as her dad holds her like he used to when she was five and had a nightmare, silent sobs wreaking over her lithe frame.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce’s gruff voice echoes in the ruined building. “Little bird. I’m so very sorry that I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.”

Eleanor lets it all out, the terrible feeling of loss after Jason’s death, how alone she’d felt after, how angry and miserable she was for so long with no one to lean against. No one to tell her it was all right, that it was going to be okay. Bruce distancing himself from them all. Dick off with the Titans, never home and hurting just like she was, even though at the time she had been too blinded by grief to see it.

Throughout her crying, her father doesn’t say a word other than soft hushes. Rubbing one hand over her back in soothing circles and holding her tightly yet carefully as if she were made out of porcelain. When her sobbing eventually calms down to shaky breaths, Bruce presses his lips to the top of her head, and warmth floods her. Of all the things Eleanor had missed being away from Gotham. Dick, Alfred, the city itself. Her dad being her dad and not just her superior, her trainer, was probably number one on that list.

“I’m sorry,” Eleanor mumbles, her voice muffled by the press of her cheek against his armour.

“It’s okay.” Dad hushes gently. “You’re home, it’s okay.”

“Does that mean I can stay? That I can help again?” She pushes back, looking up at him through her tear blurred eyes.

The amount of emotions that flits across Bruce’s eyes are too many for her too make out, but he smiles a small smile that tells her everything’s going to be okay.

“Of course, you can, Eleanor.” He pauses, brow furrowing slightly. “However, I want you to know that you don’t have to be a vigilante to be welcomed home.” The sentence sounds awkward, like he’s not quite sure of how to convey what it is he wants to say. Even so, it warms her heart to hear it, to know that her dad wasn’t beyond forgiving her for her mistakes.

She ducks her head, reaching up with the sleeve of her shirt to wipe away the tears and snot from her face. (Eleanor half expects Alfred to appear out of the ether to scold her for doing so). It was… reassuring to hear him say that, Eleanor knew she was useful as a vigilante, she was quick, analytical and no nonsense in combat. She could hold her own in a fight. Eleanor was good at what she did. But to know that she was welcomed home, _wanted_ even, and not just because of her skills in the superhero community was… It was something that she’d never admit to wanting to hear out loud yet flooded her with indescribable joy.

“What I’m trying to say is…” Bruce pauses again, and jaw clenching as if he’s bitten into something sour. If anyone of the Gotham elite saw them now they’d be confused by how hard her father had it to try and get his words out. To them, Brucie Wayne was a charming, if a bit dim-witted, playboy who had no issues with being at the centre of attention.

Batman was also different. Batman was all tactical business. A master chess player, always steps ahead of his opponent. Whether they be friend or foe.

The true Bruce Wayne, hidden beneath layer after layer, never truly recovered from the night his parents died. The true Bruce Wayne was more emotionally stunted than even her.

“It’s okay, dad.”

“No.” He grunts, blue eyes searching for something in hers. “It’s gotten unsaid for too long already.”

“You are my daughter, and I failed you as a father. I’m not going to make that mistake again. I… I want you to know that there’s nothing you could do to make me love you less. And if you want to come back as Blackbird that’s okay, but it’s not a requirement. It’s a choice. Your choice.”

“I love you too dad.” Eleanor sniffles out, hugging him tightly again.

Outside the building there are still uncertainties that needs to be dealt with. Questions that need to be answered and wounds that need tending. Right here in the moment however, Eleanor know that her father will try his best to be what she needs. To be a rock in a storm. A guide when she’s lost. And even though he won’t have all the answers, it’s enough for her. Enough to know that he’ll try. Enough to know that Eleanor can try again, and that there will be someone there to catch her should she stumble.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, leave a kudos or a comment (or both!) if you liked it! <3  
> Chapter is named after lyrics in 'Don't Deserve You' by Plumb.  
> Work is named after lyrics in 'War of Hearts' by Ruelle.


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